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Even though it often seems as if we, as a culture, are about to drown in the stuff, it's remarkable how little we really understand about fame. Our tendency is to think of it as a single currency, traded the same for Paris Hilton as for Charlie Parker, but the truth is that there are different kinds of fame, as demonstrated by the two very different tributes paid the late jazz pianist Oscar Peterson in Toronto over the weekend.

One, an all-star gala called Oscar Peterson: Simply the Best, was big and brash and attention-getting, with celebrities onstage and fans lined up around the block hoping to get in. The other, a private gala at the International Association for Jazz Education's annual convention, was low-key and carefully considered, and attended mainly by jazz musicians. Each was heartfelt and deeply meaningful, but the two events presented such wildly divergent notions of celebrity that it was incredible to think they each applied to the same man.

But that was Oscar Peterson for you. Yes, Peterson, who died last month at age 82, was a great musician, someone whose talent and technique was accurately described as "Olympian" by Dana Gioia, chairman of the American National Endowment for the Arts; but he was also a great person, someone whose modesty, charm, enthusiasm and spirit spoke to audiences in ways mere musical ability cannot. That he was celebrated for both aspects over a single weekend speaks as well of us as it does of him.

Friday's NEA Jazz Masters gala, in Constitution Hall at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, started things off with an appropriately respectful bit of ceremony. Peterson was one of seven musicians being inducted that evening, so things were kept short and relatively simple.

There was a video biography, a performance of two of his compositions (marred somewhat by badly balanced amplification), a heartbreaking reminiscence by his widow, Kelly Peterson, and the presentation itself, made jointly by Gioia and Karen Kain, chair for the Canadian Council of the Arts (this was the first time in the award's 26-year history that a musician was honoured jointly by the NEA and CCA).

The following afternoon, a markedly more boisterous celebration was convened just a few blocks away at Roy Thomson Hall, where fans had been queuing up all day (Chris Bishop, at the head of the line,had been there since 5:30 Saturday morning) to snare seats for the two and a half-hour tribute. Wildly diverse and intensely emotional, Simply the Best, hosted by Valerie Pringle, offered performances by pianist Herbie Hancock, jazz singer Nancy Wilson and soprano Measha Brueggergosman, as well as plaudits from producer Quincy Jones, singer Stevie Wonder and Governor-General Michaëlle Jean, among others.

Both events overflowed with affection for Peterson and his music, but where the NEA program emphasized the enormity of his artistry, Simply the Best underscored the towering stature of the man himself, with tributes that were deeply personal and often unabashedly emotional.

It was amazing to note the many ways in which "OP" was remembered by his loved ones. Celine Peterson, the pianist's 16-year-old daughter, recalled her father with a sad, sweet fondness that had many in the crowd tearing up.

"There are no words to describe the pain that me and everybody else in my family feel and I know it will never go away," she told the crowd.

Clarinetist Phil Nimmins, who along with Peterson helped establish Canada as a jazz power, portrayed Peterson both as a mighty musician - Nimmins nicknamed him "Thunder Toes and Thunder Head" -- and an inveterate practical joker. Hancock confessed that he likely would have ended up as an electrical engineer had he not been inspired by Peterson's playing, while Wonder (in a taped statement) declared that Peterson "played the piano so well that you could hear it sing and dance."

The music, too, covered a range of feelings - sorrow, joy, nostalgia, hope, triumph and loss. Wilson, whose husband in California was ill and recovering from surgery, seemed overcome by feelings of loss as she sang Gordon Jenkins sad, sweet Goodbye; Jamaican-born pianist Monty Alexander paid tribute to Peterson's wife and daughter with a composition called Sweet Lady, and turned its loving melancholy into an anthem of perseverance as he segued into Bob Marley's No Woman, No Cry. And Gregory Charles spoke powerfully to the Afro-Caribbean heritage he shares with Peterson as he sang, in both anger and pride, "Oh Lord, I want to be free!"

It wasn't all broad strokes and big statements. Hancock, after saying that each of us goes on two great voyages, birth and death, offered an abstracted, impressionistic version of his own tune, Maiden Voyage, that at points sounded like a lost composition by Ravel, while singer Hillary Kole, with whom Peterson made his last recording, rendered Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered with such tender grace that it was easy to understand why Peterson had taken her under his wing.

Things concluded, appropriately enough, with a rendition of Peterson's most uplifting work, Hymn to Freedom. Arranged for soprano, choir, and jazz quartet by keyboardist (and CBC Radio personality) Andrew Craig, the song drew from all the musical worlds Peterson moved through, both sacred and profane. Hearing Brueggergosman's voice soaring above Alexander's jazzy chords and the choir's gospel-schooled harmony wasn't simply magnificent - it was inspiring as only the greatest music can be.

A recording of Oscar Peterson - Simply the Best is found at http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/concerts_archive.html